


nikolaschka

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: The Nameless One-Eyed King comes to Touka's bar with a proposition.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it took forever again…but…i finished it… :’D
> 
> this fic is based (very…incredibly…SUPER loosely…..) on [paka-senpai’s mafia au](http://paa-kaa.tumblr.com/post/118792419683/mafia-au-ft-shironeki-this-time-he-looks-like) with bartender!touka and gang boss kaneki :’) thank you paka-senpai for the inspiration ////
> 
> i hope you all have a good day ahead ☀

Her job requires a certain special balance. A certain steady focus. A certain knowledge of how to measure and place her steps, knowledge of how to push and pull.

She mixes drinks of all colors, all sizes, all contents. The aim of the drinkers, rarely stated aloud, is always the same: _I don’t want to be in this city. I don’t want to be in my body. I want to rest. I want to sleep._

What ends up happening is always the opposite. They sip, or else swig, or else swallow hungrily. And then, as if she served them coffee, as if it were the morning, as if it were the start of a brand new day they were sure they wanted to control rather than be dominated by, they wake up.

:::

_“Have you…have you heard of the Nameless One-Eyed King?”_

“No,” Touka lies, blandly. “The what?”

It’s her custom, to respond this way: no, no, no. To everyone she is as empty as the glasses that she polishes with patient aimlessness as her patrons steep. The tips are fair, most nights, but this is where the real value is: effervescent whispers, sweet half-slurs, embittered mutters with a whisk of salt.

Her game is small, and she prefers it that way. She selects clients carefully. She triangulates all data, digs up her own personal research. When the time comes, she transmits it through Ayato, who runs it wherever it needs to go, making sure that she herself remains hidden safely away.

She doesn’t mind the many cuts that happen before the cash flows back, dropped surreptitiously into her tip jar; the knowledge itself is what’s valuable. She’s small, a single person and a few friends and family living in a city where someone would eat you alive given the chance. Information that comes well-vetted and without the cost of tiny Dove spying devices is precious. She dodges enemies, and stockpiles exits and weaponry, and prepares her script if anyone comes to flush her out to the Doves.

 _“Don’t kill me,”_ she can say, one day. _“If my brothers don’t hear from me by the end of today, they’ll release everything. Every dirty secret.”_

_“All those missing investigators.”_

_“The experiments.”_

_“The so-called accident that killed Centipede’s ‘mother’ and instead of destroying him, made him so much more.”_

That’s one exit. Here’s the other.

“ _Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me, let me live, and I’ll tell you who the One-Eyed King is.”_

It’s hard to walk this fine line, this tightrope between and above everyone, to be connected only by sight and distance. Factions every day claw and clutch for subsistence in the wards and she is just another one of them, threading the boundaries of larger players. Others have left her side, or else been plucked from it, or else fallen.

But as far as she’s concerned, her life has never been anything else, and never will be.

:::

Of course, life isn’t a perfect story, with all its perfect words: the storm that rains on the protagonist’s darkest moment, the hiss of insects that follows an ominous decision. It’s not the Doves that find her first.

The phone is ringing incessantly, but Nishiki, the ass, is out again, and it’s too busy to escape to the back. But after the calls continue, Touka grits her teeth, and pulls herself away. She retrieves the phone from her apron, checks the caller’s name, and practically snarls into the receiver.

“ _Ayato_. I told you not to call me when —”

“Aneki,” Ayato gasps. That’s what it is: a gasp. “You’re at work?”

Touka frowns. “Of course. Where else would I —”

“Get out,” Ayato says. “Get out, _right now_.”

Ayato never sounds like this. Touka’s blood runs cold. But before he can explain, she knows.

The customer chatter quiets. It’s so silent that she can hear the bell on the door ring as the door shuts, and the sound of it echoes through :re.

She hangs up, with stiff hands, without further word. She looks up to see her own reflection in the mirror. Her eyes are wide, and she forces them to soften. At the same time, her trembling hand fumbles on a nearby shelf, and closes on a corkscrew.

 _Do it,_ she tells herself, _get back out there_ , and she does just in time, with her hand behind her back. She emerges just as the door to :re shuts behind a figure there, who she can’t quite clearly see. But the air in the bar is still. And when the figure speaks, their words take up all the space.

“Get out.”

The hairs on her neck raise. The figure steps aside, to allow everyone to pass. The door opens and shuts, over and over, the bell turning shrill. When Touka starts toward the door as well, but the figure raises their hand. A red glove indicates _Not you,_ and Touka freezes, into place.

Soon, they are the only two in :re.

:::

_“The One-Eyed King devours his enemies. Slurps up every finger. There’s a sound sometimes, when he’s near — the sound of a knuckle cracking, between his teeth.”_

_“He lost his arms to the greatest of the Doves, but it meant nothing. He just grew them right back.”_

_“No, he stole them, he took them from someone else. Just stole them and made them his.”_

_“They took his eye too.”_

_“His eye? He cover it with that patch because when he died, the first time, and came alive again, it left a mark on him — an eye as red as blood.”_

_“That eye was the last thing you saw against Centipede. He had no affiliation then. He wanted to know about the experiments, but…”_

_“Killed everyone…”_

_“Everyone dead…_ ”

_“Their bodies in shreds! Completely unrecognizable. Everything piled up in pieces, the feet didn’t even have their toes…”_

_“Blades erupting right out of his body…”_

_“No weapon works on him, none. He tried to kill himself once, before everything, but the knife bent. Even then hell didn’t want him.”_

_“No heart. It was tortured out of him.”_

_“They crushed him, they turned him into a Dove, you know. But he woke up. And now he just wants to murder all of them. Everyone that did him wrong.”_

_“Not murder. Worse. He’ll take anything he wants from you. Arm, rib, eye — maybe even pull your heart right out from between your ribs —”_

_“It all sounds crazy, but I think there’s a little truth to all of it. If you see him, don’t fight, Aneki. Don’t fucking punch him or whatever, don’t bother. Just run.”_

Touka can’t move. Can’t breathe.

He smiles, warmly.

“Are you Rabbit?”

:::

“Rabbit” is the name she shares with Ayato, sort of. It’s the verbal signature on her information. But, “ _Rabbit_ ” is not what she sees when she looks in the mirror.

So, “ _No_ ” is the answer that she wants to say. _“No”_ and “ _Sorry”_ and “ _Don’t kill me. I’ll tell you anything._ ”

“Yes,” she answers, barely.

:::

He walks forward. He exudes a certain presence, an air that is cold, and heavy. He sits on one of her barstools, carefully maneuvering the robe he wears.

He looks exactly like what’s she heard. Pale hair. Eyepatch. Older than her, but not by much. The robe and suit hides if he has any weapons, either on his body or within it. The one thing she wasn’t expecting was the smile, but even now it’s fading into thoughtful, observant stoicism.

He scans :re — the tables, the bottles, the shelves of books. Then he looks at her.

“Rabbit,” he says. “What are you holding behind your back?”

His one eye is sharp as a knife. Touka feels stabbed. She hesitates, and is relieved to find that she is capable of walking forward calmly. She shows him, casually, the corkscrew, at the same time that she reaches for a bottle of wine.

“This is a really good year,” she murmurs. “It’s the best thing I have in here.”

“Oh,” he says. “No, thank you. Do you serve coffee?”

“…Coffee?”

“Black,” he clarifies. “Unless it’s too much trouble?”

Touka stares at him. He’s serious.

“It’s the only thing I drink,” he says. “But if you don’t have any…”

He trails off.

 _What,_ Touka almost laughs. _Will you drink my blood instead?_

The corkscrew rattles when she sets it down. She bends to the fridge beneath the counter, misses the handle the first time and scrapes it too hard the second. Sure enough, shitty Nishiki’s cans are still under there, crowding against the chilled glasses, and for the first time she doesn’t want to strangle him for it.

She opens a can and pours it into one of the glasses. He takes it with a quiet thanks, and drinks, silently.

:::

That’s all he does, for a while. Drink.

Somehow, impossibly, she’s starting to calm, a little. In the absence of a knife against her throat, her mind begins to slow its racing. She breathes. She weighs.

Close to her hand are at least half a dozen cups she can smash and use to stab him. Even if they don’t penetrate his skin, they should distract him. She can race out the back before the two figures she can see waiting outside her bar’s door can figure out what’s happening. She can find the first Dove she sees and demand sanctuary.

He continues drinking.

“It’s nice in here,” he says, when there’s nothing left. “Home-y.”

Touka pops another can and refills his glass.

“What do you want?” she asks. Out of apprehension, her voice comes out with a tiny bite. If he notices, or is offended, he doesn’t give indication of it.

“I wanted to meet the person who’s been telling so many stories about me,” he replies.

“I don’t tell stories about you,” Touka tells him. “They tell themselves.”

“You’re always at the root of the true ones,” he says. “So I wondered if maybe you were someone that I knew.”

He glances up at her.

“Well,” Touka says, “clearly, I’m not.”

He looks down again. He swirls the contents of his glass.

“How did you find me?” Touka asks. But he only looks at her stonily, so she continues on.

“What do you want?” Touka demands again. “If you have the information you came for, then get out. You’re ruining business. This is my busiest night.”

It’s a lie, but he stands. His hand goes beneath his robe, and Touka grips a glass beneath a counter. But all he retrieves from his robe is a small book, and a thick envelope.

The book he returns to his pocket. The envelope he sets on her counter. From the shape of it, she can tell it’s filled with money.

A _lot_ of money.

“I want your information,” he says.

“I — I don’t have any information,” Touka gasps. “I don’t know anything you probably don’t already know.”

“In the future, I mean. Things are changing,” he says. “I’m not able to stay underground as much as I’d like. I need another person to rely on for information.”

“There are others,” Touka says, still shocked. “I’m just — I mean — there are others that know much more than me.”

He shakes his head. “No one says what you can. It’s your ear that I want.”

 _No,_ she thinks. _No way._ Affiliation with the One-Eyed King is a death sentence. But he must trace the direction of her thoughts, because he shakes his head.

“I’ll protect you,” he says. “That’s part of the deal.”

The Nameless One-Eyed King. _Protecting_ her.

He goes on. He’ll only visit her occasionally. She can still sell whatever information she wishes, but when he comes, he’ll hear anything he likes, in exchange for his fee.

“All for information,” he concludes. “That’s it.”

 _No,_ she thinks. _That’s never just it._

All those single, innocent secrets never stay the way they are. Air and light and company always let them grow into something more. If she controls them herself, she can remain properly and safely on her tightrope. If she lets him pry them from her mouth, they’ll twist and turn and knot and ravel her up.

But.

The door of :re opens. “King,” calls one of the figures waiting outside, a person who looks barely older than a child. “The storm.”

It’s a sudden one; rain is falling, a downpour, a seasonal gush. From somewhere Touka thinks she hears a skitter, as if from many chitinous legs. And she knows, then, when the Nameless One-Eyed King looks back at her: no matter what she says, he will return.

She reaches, and slips the money into her apron, like she needs it, like she’s some peasant desperate for it. Accepting so little in exchange for so much is like swallowing a thorn. Her voice is low as he steps to the door.

“I’ll see you later, Sasaki Haise,” she calls.

He pauses.

“Or,” she says, “should I call you Kaneki Ken?”

He turns.

“You can call me Kaneki,” he says. “Kirishima Touka.”

She reddens. He has a smile again, soft and polite. He opens the door.

”I’ll see you later.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ayato and Nishiki can’t believe it.

“I’ll stay here,” Ayato says furiously. “I’ll protect you.”

“Don’t bother,” Nishiki mutters, before Touka can. “We can’t stay here all day, and there’s no way he’ll come around when Touka’s not alone.”

He’s right. Ayato does his best, but the instant that he slips out to run his errands, the moment that Nishiki is away, there comes a certain hour where the bar mysteriously empties. At that time, the sound of the bell pierces.

“Good evening, Rabbit.”

“Good evening,” Touka says. “Kaneki.”

Her voice is stiff, but he sits anyway, in front of her, as if she were a friend that invited him in. She retrieves coffee from below the bar, one of half a dozen cans she painstakingly gathered from a vending machine nearby, and pours it into a glass.

For a while he doesn’t say anything. He just sits, swirling the glass and its contents. Touka waits, and starts spilling her nervous energy into drying out a couple already-dry glasses.

“Tell me something,” he says, finally.

“About what?” she asks, flatly.

“The first ward,” he decides. “Have you heard any news about it?”

“No,” Touka tells him. “But I have heard something this week about the thirteenth.”

He seems surprised. She focuses on wiping.

“Someone’s been collecting a bunch of suits,” she says. “They’re saying the White Suits are starting up again.”

“They’re not,” the King — _Kaneki_ — says. “That’s us.”

“You.” Touka blinks. “What are you doing with them?”

He smiles at her. It’s a smile she recognizes well, and her lips purse, ever so slightly, remembering the last time she saw it: on her father, as he chatted with their neighbors. Just as it was then, this smile is distant, polite, disarming. He drinks.

 _Fine,_ Touka thinks, setting a glass down harder, perhaps, than she needs to. _If this is how it’s going to go, fine._

:::

She can handle this much.

She gathers information. A couple times a week, or sometimes just once, her bar empties. He arrives. In exchange for information, he grants her money, and those smiles, and, increasingly, tiny crumbs that he casually scatters before her: _“That’s us.”_

_“Don’t worry about that.”_

_“The Doves have other things they’re concerned with.”_

_“Don’t visit the second ward, next week. Tell your brothers and Nishio-san as well.”_

_“This coffee is delicious.”_

“Did you make it, this time?” Kaneki asks, clearly not missing the small machine she’s added behind the bar. Touka just smiles at him, disarmingly, and sips.

:::

For as long as she can remember the waters of the city have been turbulent with groups wrestling over the reins of it. But something is changing. She’s hard-pressed to think that her information really has anything to do with it. And yet, the parties warring start bleeding and coagulate into two remaining factions: the Doves, and the King.

“ _The Reaper is sick. Been sick, for a long time._ ”

“ _I don’t know if he was sick, but he’s definitely gone now. The King slit his throat._ ”

“ _Cut him into pieces._ ”

“ _He was leaning over the body, he was about to_ — _well…let’s just say they had to chase him away from it.._ ”

“ _Without him, the Doves are done, there’s no way…_ ”

“ _I’m…I’m scared. I’m scared. Who could possibly have defeated the Reaper himself?_ ”

“ _Wasn’t that man…wasn’t he like a father to him?_ ”

“ _If he does that to his own family…_ ”

“ _I prefer the Doves over someone who traded away their soul_.”

“ _I really don’t like it. Be careful, Aneki._ ”

“Don’t worry,” Touka says, shelving cups, “I am,” and Ayato frowns at her.

“Don’t _worry_ ,” Touka repeats. “He’s not even half as scary as the rumors are.”

“You’re underestimating him,” Ayato grumbles. “You’re forgetting he’s the One-Eyed King. _The_ One-Eyed King.”

“I’m not forgetting anything.”

“Looks like you are to me,” Ayato snaps. When Touka glares at him, his own glare drops to his fist.

“Sorry,” he manages. “It’s just — even though — even though I’m not strong enough to get him off your back — just don’t forget that you being under his thumb doesn’t mean we’re on the same side. In the end, he’s just another weird freak.”

Touka sighs. “I know we’re not on the same side. But just because we’re under his thumb doesn’t mean we can’t try to have some advantage ourselves. Trust me,” she tells him, and Ayato grits his teeth at her, and exits with a huff.

:::

There’s a difference, between underestimating, and keeping her head. She knows balance. Meeting after meeting passes without Touka getting so much as a fingernail broken in the presence of the great and terrible One-Eyed King. Her heart starts to keep its keel when he enters; she stops her sighs of relief when he leaves.

Most of the time, he’s stoic. His flat expressions are punctuated by polite smiles that aren’t particularly rare. Like his requisite “ _Tell me something_ ,” his questions and requests are straightforward. He never overstays. Rumors or not, he isn’t violent around her; he’s calm, and clean. Cannibal or not, impermeable or not, monster or not, the One-Eyed King as polite and predictable as any other customer.

If not more so.

:::

The tightrope grows taut again beneath her feet. She finds new balance, and her courage — or maybe just her gall — starts to strengthen.

If he’s going to force her to cough her secrets, she’s going to get something back that’s worth more than just money.

She mixes coffee black, and with milk, and with sugar, and chocolate. The King’s smiles aren’t particularly rare, but sometimes, when he arrives dripping from the outside, when his hair is rain-wet and his robe is pulled tighter against the cold and his fingers curl stiffly around a warm mug —

Kaneki’s smiles aren’t particularly rare, but the one she sees aimed down at his cup the first time she picks a bunny into the foam is definitely warmer than any she’s seen before, and consistent, too.

Some part of him, she’s sure, is charmed, and she knows she’s getting closer, she _knows_ it. He stops ordering outright, and merely takes whatever she serves him, and sips, or else swigs, or else swallows hungrily as Touka grimaces at him, nervous he’ll burn his throat but unwilling to challenge him on certain days, when he comes in with his gaze darkened by something stewing in his chest.

“Tell me something,” Touka tries, jokingly, soothingly, but he doesn’t bite. He rubs his forehead, adjusts his robe.

“It’s safer if you don’t know,” he murmurs, that time, and every time thereafter. She takes it with a smile covering her gritted teeth, and thinks, and thinks. What does she know about the One-Eyed King?

The next time, she’s prepared.

“Alright, alright,” Touka says lightly, polishing her glasses. “Then how about you just tell me about the book you’re reading?”

He blinks at her. She presses.

“I just noticed…your book, before, the first time we met.” She says it lightly; she doesn’t even look at him. “Takatsuki Sen, right?”

He’s silent. She clears her throat. She found _Dear Kafka_ in the bookstore last week; she looked up quotes from prominent reviews, and used his money to take a copy home.

“‘ _In this room,_ ’” she recites, “‘ _you mustn’t love anyone._ ’”

“Yeah,” he says. “I…like that line, too.”

“Right?” She gives him her best beam, and his gaze drops hastily to his cup.

:::

That night, he leaves early. And her heart catches, just a little, as day after day passes without his presence.

 _He’ll return,_ she tells herself, furious at her own apprehension. _He’ll come back._

He needs her information. He _needs_ it.

Doesn’t he?

She almost goes to look for him — he never told her, but she is almost certain she knows where his HQ is, she is almost positive that she’s pieced the path together from eavesdropping and rumors and the direction he takes when he leaves and the receipts he uses as bookmarks on the different books he flashes when he takes out the money. She could find him, if she wanted, if she was prepared to come home and have Ayato and Nii-san and Nishiki fight over who would murder her first.

In the end, she just waits, furious with herself, and anxious. So what if he doesn’t come back? What does she care? She’ll be better off without him bothering her, without his invisible “protection,” without him yanking secrets out her throat.

Still, when the bell finally rings over his figure again, Touka’s voice calling out her usual “Welcome back” is a little too loud. Her heart skips again, in almost the same way it did when he first began to visit her. He comes in with a limp that might be imperceptible to someone whose every task didn’t involve reading the people around them.

He sits, heavily. He doesn’t meet her gaze. His posture is familiar.

_I don’t want to be in this city. I don’t want to be in my body. I want to rest. I want to sleep._

“Kaneki,” she calls, and he looks up at her, and then down at the mug she slides toward him. He puts his hands around it, eyes the foam-bunny stoically until its bright smile melts into a grimace.

“Tell me something?” Touka ventures, after a moment.

“Sure,” Kaneki decides, after a moment. “I just was thinking…well, actually, I was wondering if you…that is…well.” He clears his throat.

“What did you think?” he asks. “About the ending to _Dear Kafka._ ”

“Oh,” Touka says. “Um. It seemed…fine. I liked it. I mean, in the end it turned out fine for everyone, didn’t it?”

The smile he gives her then is strange. Lacking its usual polite sweetness. Sad. “You think so?”

“What do you mean? Everyone got what they wanted.”

“It’s pretty ambiguous, I think. All of Takatsuki-sensei’s stories are tragedies. In that context, even if _Dear Kafka_ seems a little more cheerful, there’s almost an ominous feel to it. Like the home the characters are searching for the entire time never really existed.” He swirls the mug, turning the bunny into a muddy spiral. “When they finally get to a place with some kind of peace at the end, it feels a little too perfect. Like it’s just a dream.”

Touka frowns at him. “But the only reason you think that is because all of Takatsuki’s other books are tragedies? That’s unfair. Just because that person wrote a million tragedies doesn’t mean that this is one too. Maybe they got sick of it.”

Kaneki drinks, finally. Obscured by the mug is a different smile, one that she finds she’s missed.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I can see that.”

There’s a little bit of foam in the corner of his mouth. Without thinking, she reaches to brush it away, and when he blinks at her outstretched fingers she realizes, and panics, and pretends to be taking his mug away instead.

“I-I’m not done,” Kaneki says with surprise, but Touka keeps her back to him.

“You took so long to drink it that it’s already cold,” she snaps. “I’ll make you another.”

“Ah…okay.”

She prepared a lot of information for him: Doves assembling in a certain ward, the possible death of their leader in their very headquarters, an assembly on the horizon which might interest him, a planned ambush that could itself be easily ambushed. In her opinion, it’s a good way for the One-Eyed King to take advantage in whatever war they’re fighting. If they win here, she’s almost positive that the whole city will feel it. For the first time, she’s also almost positive that some good might even come out of it.

But in the end, he doesn’t ask. When she starts to mention something, he shakes his head.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I have plans regarding all that already. I actually don’t want to think about those things too much today. I just came by to…have coffee. And talk with you, a little.”

“Oh,” Touka says.

“I hope that’s fine,” he says. For the first time, he seems almost…nervous? He starts to fumble in his robe. “Ah, I didn’t bring the usual amount of money, but I still have…that is, for the coffee, I have —”

“No,” Touka argues, “don’t worry about it, it’s fine,” but he continues searching, so she has to repeat herself with increasing irritation: “It’s fine. It’s _fine_.”

He quits, but seems unhappy about it. Well — not _unhappy_ , but — Touka watches him closely. Nervous, maybe? He’s fidgeting. He finishes his next drink quickly and turns down an offer for another.

“I should go,” he mutters. “But thank you, Rabbit.”

“Of course,” she says. When he’s at the door, she adds, spontaneously: “Be safe.”

If he hears it, he gives no indication. His gaze already seems turned away to thoughts that she can’t see. Distraction would seem to be the reason why he didn’t bother to push his bar stool back beneath the counter as usual.

But when she goes to the other side of the counter, she finds that he left something there, on the cushion: a tiny rabbit, on a keychain.


	3. Chapter 3

Balance. Balance.

She’s connected to so many parts of so many worlds in this shattered city. And she’s also a part of none of it.

More than just being her way of life, it’s how she’s managed to survive.

How could she have forgotten it?

:::

One night, when the bar is empty, the bell on the door rings. The hour, the silhouette, maybe even something about the feeling of the presence that enters — some combination of it all makes her slip up.

“Welcome back,” she calls, without looking.

“‘Welcome back?’” comes the reply, with a light laugh. “What a sweet welcome for someone who’s never been here before.”

Touka freezes. She looks up, to see someone smiling and waving at her brightly. Droplets scatter from their gloves.

“My mistake,” Touka manages, composing herself. She gestures at her counter. A pair of people enter, toting suitcases that they stow beneath the bar. _Doves._

There’s no reason she should be wary. None at all. They’re customers, just like anyone else. But when her back is turned, she makes herself take a breath. Facing them, she forces her brightest smile.

“What can I get you?”

The first who spoke, a dark-haired man, smiles at her so broadly that the mole at the corner of his eye quirks. He scans the bottles lined up on her back wall.

“ _Hmmmm_ ,” he says. “How about…some coffee?”

Touka has a beat of hesitation. The coffee machine is really just for Kaneki; no one else has ever asked for it. But…

“Of course,” she says. “Would you like it black?”

The Dove looks thoughtful, and then beams at her. “On second thought, I think I’ll just go with something alcoholic after all. House pick. Something that’ll help me have some pleasant dreams.”

“No problem,” Touka mutters. The second Dove asks for the same, so she saves herself some effort by pouring some cheap wine, and then resumes pretending to clean up as they chat. They comment on :re for a while, and then on the weather, and then, finally, the second Dove lowers his voice and makes it honey sweet.

“Anyway…I’m still curious, about what it was you were saying earlier, Rank 1 Furuta. You always have such deep insights.”

“Oh…do I?”

“Yes. I’m always shocked that no one recognized your impressive talent before now.”

Touka rolls her eyes. Furuta laughs, with embarrassment. The sound is ragged and loud with inebriation; his next words stumble.

“Oh…well, thank you, Urie-san. But, um, unfortunately…I don’t quite remember…”

“It was,” Urie says, “about the ambush,” and Touka stops wiping, and Furuta blinks and gasps and says “Right! Right, right, right,” and leans in.

:::

_They know._

Touka sets her palms flat on her counter. The store is closed up; the only light comes from streetlights outside, glowing through the windows she cleaned once and then again after locking the door. Her heart is racing, but she’s sure she managed to keep it together. The first of them had gotten so drunk off that single drink that he’d called her cute and caressed her throat and she’d had to sling him over his shoulder in order to throw him out, so, even if she slipped up on something, she’s sure it will be lost to his own fog.

Nishiki and Ayato and Nii-san don’t have plans to visit today. There’s no Ayato to froth out demands for an explanation; no Nishiki to dryly dissect and project any romantic motivations; no Nii-san to stare her down until her own logic comes bubbling up helplessly from her own mouth, _I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t._

It’s just her. Just her.

“ _They’re not expecting it at all,_ ” Furuta said, with a smile both nervous and wolfish. “ _They’ll be cornered, easy pickings. Just him and those little delinquents he brainwashed to go with him._ ”

It shouldn’t matter. Doves, One-Eyed King, Aogiri and White Suits and whoever, so what? They’re all the same. Whether one or the other is in power doesn’t change the fact that the city will keep chewing and churning people down as it always does, and she’ll be here, at :re, until her end comes to meet her. The page will turn on them all and the story will just keep moving as relentlessly as it ever did.

She smooths her hands over the counter, over the familiar groves of it, stained and dented with visitation. The barstools, too, are beaten and worn. There’s no sign of someone ever having sat there and quietly nursed coffee while mulling over secrets and tragic novels. He’s nothing. Just another customer.

Touka’s fingers curl on the wood.

“ _We’ve got something that’ll really get him, this time._ ”

“ _Get right under his skin._ ”

“ _It’s just the weakness we’ve been waiting for, just the opportunity we needed._ ”

“ _Once we behead him, the city is ours. Nothing will stand in our way._ ”

“ _I’m excited. It’s silly, but I was thinking more of what you said — that it doesn’t have to be a tragedy this time. So — so I think I’ll try reading Takatsuki-sensei’s newest book with a little more optimism._ ”

“ _Good,_ ” Touka replied, without thinking, before she could censor herself. “ _I’ll look forward to hearing what you think when you finish._ ”

The lights flicker as she shuts them off. She locks the door, and quickly stuffs her keys into her pocket before rain can get her rabbit wet.

_It will take just a second,_ she thinks, pulling her hood over her head, and for a moment she forgets that on a tightrope, one step means everything.

:::

It turns out that the first block is the hardest. Once she’s on her way, she can barely stop herself from running. She checks the time, confirming there’s still hours left before the cleaver falls, that she has ample minutes to bestow her information and get back home.

The hideaway of the One-Eyed King and his followers is in an abandoned part of the sewer systems, a place tucked away in a maze of tunnels and protected doubly by the messy, jagged knots of construction that, having lost its funders, will never be finished. She only has to break past one already-broken fence and scan for a good way to descend when the pair that started following her some fifteen minutes prior decide to make their appearance. They shout, and when Touka turns, they flourish long blades.

It’s the young ones, the one she’s seen stand guard outside :re.

The dark-haired one speaks out first, stolid _._ “Stop.”

“Or else,” the other adds, a little unnecessarily, brandishing their weapon. Despite their age, they handle their weapons well. The points aim at Touka, utterly level.

“I just wanted to pass some information along,” she tells them, with some relief. “Will you go tell Kane…the King. Would you go tell him for me?”

The two exchange glances. One holds their weapon tighter.

“Tell him next time he goes to the bar,” the dark-haired one says. Touka bristles, a little.

“It’ll be too late by then.”

The guards hesitate; they exchange glances. The weapon of one relaxes, and the dark-haired one uses his own weapon to poke it back straight.

“Maybe we should,” the other whispers, audibly. “It’s Rabbit. He trusts her.”

“He always goes to Rabbit for the information, not the other way around. It could be a trap.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“It’s not,” Touka says.

The two glance up at her, sharply, like they’re just now remembering she’s still there.

“The ambush is soon, right?” Touka demands, and they exchange glances.

“Would he really have told her…?” says the nervous one.

“Unlikely.”

Eyes narrow. They readjusts their weapon, and Touka readjusts, as well.

“If you won’t tell him yourself, then take me to him,” she says. “Or I’ll leave now, and go the Doves myself.”

:::

“ _Fine_.”

They won’t allow her in; but, they will bring him to her. The dark-haired one waits with her, eyeing her suspiciously while Touka paces beneath the spotty eaves and then, having stepped into one too many puddles, decides to take refuge in a shadow.

This was supposed to be quick.

“It’s been a while,” she mutters, and the guard huffs.

“The King is a busy person,” they reply. “He has other business. I don’t know what you were expecting.”

_I expected that he would come running if he knew it was me_ , Touka realizes, and draws her hood a little lower.

“ _Aneki,_ ” she can practically hear. “ _What the hell are you doing?_ ”

“ _Anything that gets in the Doves’ way is good,,_ ” she could say. They are words from someone else’s mouth, as are these: “ _If it’s the King, maybe…maybe things might get better.”_

“ _It’s not like things could get much worse._ ”

“ _Haven’t we been safe, the whole time that he’s been visiting?_ ”

“ _It’s good luck to return your favors_.”

These are what other people have said, right?

Suddenly, her heart is crawling up her ribs. What is she doing? Even the guard seems nervous, shifting their weight from foot to foot, squinting out into the rain like they sense someone nearing. What is she doing? This is so unlike her. She summoned the Nameless One-Eyed King, and he’s coming.

She holds her hands to her mouth, inhales deeply, and exhales. Her breath warms her, plumes up in her face. There’s nothing to worry about. All she needs to talk about is the ambush, and then she can go back home, away from this danger.

Even so, when she finally hears footsteps in the distance, the feeling that overwhelms her suddenly isn’t fear, but relief. She turns, already calling out, not saying “ _Kaneki, there’s something important I need to tell you_ ,” but, thoughtlessly, “Kaneki. Welcome back.”

But “ _Nice to see you again_ ” isn’t what he replies. He’s moving fast; someone behind him, the other guard, is struggling to keep up. Too soon, Touka sees that there’s nothing about his silhouette that resembles at all the person that visits her sometimes just to sip coffee over pocket-sized novels. His right eye is imperious.

“Rabbit,” he says coldly. “This isn’t part of our agreement.”

“I — I, um —” Her words stumble. Is she speaking to the right person? Where’s — is this — really — Kaneki?

She yanks herself straight. Steadies, hardens. “I have something important to tell you.”

“But it’s probably a trap,” the dark-haired guard intercedes, and that shakes Touka from her uncertainty. She glares, and opens her mouth.

“Leave us alone,” Kaneki says.

It’s the voice she heard when she first met him, the voice that cleared out her entire bar. It’s not a large voice, but it leaves no room for argument. The guards bow their heads and depart, without further word, and when their footsteps are no longer audible, Kaneki turns back to her.

“Follow me.”

“Why?” Touka demands. “I just wanted to tell you one thing.”

“Tell me when we have more privacy,” he says, “I don’t want you to be seen,” and this time, he leaves before she can reply.

:::

They don’t go far. But the streetlights are especially dim, now. And these buildings don’t look like they can stand the wind starting to hiss through their rusty skeletons.

When Kaneki is satisfied, he stops. He turns toward her, and the robe swings. His expression is still unreadable. Touka stiffens.

“It’s dangerous for you to be here,” he says.

“I know,” Touka replies. “I’m not stupid.”

He only stares at her. Despite his cold expression, despite the actual cold winds rustling distant things in the dark and flicking rain onto her cheeks, Touka feels her face warm. This is the first time they’ve been somewhere alone together, outside of :re. Without the counter between them, he seems…really close.

“I…just…needed to tell you something,” Touka manages.

“And you couldn’t wait?”

“No. They know, Kaneki,” Touka says, before anything else can delay her. “The Doves know about your ambush.”

Kaneki frowns at her. “What ambush?”

“The — the one you have planned.” When Kaneki remains bewildered, Touka tries again. “I’d heard…you said…you had something planned.”

“Yes,” he said, “but nothing like that. Who did you hear that from?”

“Well, I’d guessed it. I figured it would be a good idea.”

“It is,” Kaneki agrees. “Which is why we’re not doing it. It’s predictable.”

“But I heard a Dove,” Touka protests. “Some — some stupid Dove came in, and got really drunk, and he started talking about it,” and then she stops, because Kaneki’s eye flashes, and before she knows it he has grabbed her, not just around the shoulders but around her throat.

His gloved hands squeeze her collar — and then release her, an instant later. Touka leaps back before he can touch her again, but he isn’t looking at her anymore. Instead, he is looking at something stuck to the tip of his gloved finger: something metal that, even in the meager light, shines, like a tiny dagger.

:::

So many things happen then, all at once.

Touka realizes.

_I was tricked_.

And.

_I — I tricked Kaneki_.

At the same time, Kaneki throws the device on the ground, and crushes it with a heavy stomp.

His face is dark. Their gazes meet, and Touka tries to say, to the best of her ability, a thousand things.

_I had nothing to do with that._

And, _I didn’t mean to betray you._

And, _I just wanted — I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t get hurt. That you would be able to come back._

In the end, she says nothing. Kaneki blinks. Then his eyebrows furrow. He seems about to say something, so Touka opens her mouth hastily to apologize, to explain, even to beg, if necessary, and then, before she can say a single word —

He lunges toward her, and — and does — something else.

:::

It’s impossible to explain. It’s as if his shadow rose from his back, and took physical form, and thrust her against the wall. The impact chokes the breath out of her; she stumbles, coughing, and struggles to keep balance, and distantly she is aware of Kaneki hissing, and stepping in front of her, obscuring her view of someone else that has arrived on the scene.

“Associate Special Class!” she hears. “My, my, my! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Good evening,” Kaneki replies, with a smile in his voice. “‘Former’ Furuta.”

:::

Kaneki straightens; he is holding one arm, but then he drops it, and shrugs the robe off, too, whose sleeve is torn, and soaked with something dark. Before the brocade finishes sinking into a puddle, both of them are in motion, again.

It’s impossible. It’s a blur. Touka squints, desperate, and in the dimness still can’t make anything out other than movement, and the motion of things that are much larger than either of them, writhing and flashing through the air. She’s paralyzed with her own horror, and only terror keeps her from screaming when something slams into the wall behind her, and crushes the solid cement into chunks of huge, sharp stone. Something bites into her cheek; she touches it, and her fingers come away red.

“ _Rabbit!_ ” Kaneki shouts. “ _Go!_ ”

“Oh, no, Rabbit-chan!” Furuta cries, when Touka finally finds it in herself to start to scramble away. “So soon? Isn’t that a little rude?”

He turns toward her, raising an arm, as if in supplication. The shadow twists behind him, and then arcs toward her, faster than she could possibly do anything about, and then, Kaneki is there, and hissing, again. This time, the blow leaves him stooped, and shuddering.

“Kaneki,” Touka gasps.

His head snaps toward her. His eyepatch, in the chaos, has slipped off. His eye burns, the pupil as scarlet as blood dripping down the side of his face.

“Rabbit,” he whispers. “Please go.”

:::

She’s known her limitations, all her life. This world belongs only to those who are strong, and now she knows that all the knowledge in the world isn’t enough even to put her in the rankings.

She goes. The taste of her own blood, creeping into the corner of her mouth, does it. She covers her head as more things crumble above her, as she feels something claw at her back and tear her coat, as something metal above is severed and clangs at her feet, she trips and stands and keeps running, running, running.

There’s no way the Nameless One-Eyed King could end here. There’s — just no way that this would be how all the rumors end. But, somehow, she can already hear it.

“ _Can you believe it? All those armies gathered, and still he died alone.”_

_“Slaughtered, cut throat to stomach and left there by himself, like an animal.”_

“ _I knew there was never anything behind him. He wasn’t ever anything.”_

_“Can you believe that all it took was one mistake?”_

She’s safe now, with nothing of the fight audible to her except the distant crash of broken things breaking even further, and the faint echo of laughter. She’s safe, but still shaking. She shuts her eyes.

Factions every day claw and clutch for subsistence in the wards and she is just another one of them, threading the boundaries of larger players. Others have already left her side, or else been plucked from it, or else fallen.

It will be fine. Her life has never been anything else, and…it…wasn’t that bad, was it?

She looks up. Her eyes are stinging — because of the cement, probably — some — dust, or something. Her vision blurs, because of — of the rain. She blinks furiously, trying to clear it, and for an instant, before it blurs again, she sees it.

There, above her. Perfectly balanced.

:::

Nii-san, and Ayato, and her — they always had a propensity, for high places.

So, though one of the steps gives out from beneath her, though her heels swipe against the rain-slick metal, she manages to keep from falling, though her torn jacket flares and flutters behind her left shoulder in the gusting wind, even as she makes her way higher, higher, higher.

It takes so long, so long, so long. By the time she reaches the top, the rain has thickened so much that she can’t see them, and she thinks she got the wrong building, that she misjudged something, that there’s no hope after all. After she finds them, she almost then convinces herself that she has willed them into being, that they are just imaginary, that they are something she dreamed desperately into existing.

But an illusion doesn’t have ragged edges that cut into her palms. An illusion isn’t so heavy that she needs to throw her whole body against it to make it creak even a centimeter. And an illusion doesn’t groan and sway threateningly against her hand when she looks over the edge of the roof, trying desperately to see, trying and hoping that there still might be something for her to attempt to aim at.

The ground is smeared with blood. The figures below have slowed, to a stop. One of them is holding up the other, caught them at a distance and is suspending them with enormous claws, and she has only an instant to be certain of which one is which.

She holds her breath, and _heaves_.

The steel tips. Slowly, at first — and then, all at once, with a sound greater than thunder.

:::

If it took her too long to make it to the top of the building, it takes her even longer to reach the bottom. She races, out of breath and still begging her body to give her even more. She sees the glint of something pale, and it only makes her go faster.

“Kaneki,” she cries. “ _Kaneki_.”

“Tou…Touka,” he gasps back.

He’s there. Crawling, and crushed partially, she sees, or — or maybe not — because a moment later he yanks himself, popping himself free and bloody from the shattered things behind him like something spat from out of an egg.

He’s gasping, but not completely flattened, and she doesn’t think twice, just grabs him, and, when it turns out he can stand and even stumble, she pulls him, and runs, and runs, and runs.

:::

Later, her face is completely straight.

_“Have you…have you heard what happened? With the King?”_

“ _No_ ,” she’ll lie, blandly. “ _What_?”

:::

“Rabbit,” Kaneki says weakly, “are you alright.”

“You…you said something different,” Touka says in reply, still panting. “Earlier.”

“Wh…what?”

“Earlier…earlier,” she says. “You called me something different.”

He looks down. His eye, the right one, is puckered shut. But the left one, after a moment, swings up, to gaze at her.

“Earlier,” he repeats. “You saved me.”

The rain takes a turn for the worse. A downpour, a seasonal gush. Distantly, she hears something, a hum as if from a thousand wings against her ear. Without the counter between them, he seems…really close.

:::

Beneath the eaves, a distance away, gasping and holding onto anything to steady themselves, she’s sure that they’re alone, that there’s no one around at all. But still, the word gets out.

“ _He escaped death, again.”_

_“As if he were capable of dying in the first place!”_

_“He didn’t escape. There’s no way he would have made it. Something came down from the sky, to save him. An angel, with a single wing.”_

_“But…why?”_

They’re dirty, bloody, soaked. It isn’t a perfect story. There are no perfect words for it. They have their breath again, mostly. But, Kaneki’s voice is low.

“Tell me something,” he says, quietly, and Touka leans up, and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! ///


End file.
